Tag Archives: suicide

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, Socrates! Not my method of attempting, but I’d rather be a tad whimiscal here, than dark. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Suicide is an ugly topic for me. It cast a long, long shadow and was right at the very beginning of my 30+ years of therapy. Yes, I mean I considered it myself… and made a very half-hearted attempt.

The bitterly ironic thing was I came much closer when I wasn’t trying as such– like the drug OD, or breathing gasoline fire. (Yes, a story I haven’t told yet.)

I am a survivor of suicide– one of my dear childhood friends took his own life. It was very frustrating for me, because I’d had the pleasure of reconnecting with him not too long before, in my church’s young adult congregation at the time (which was huge because it covered over 5 small cities). The obituary was vague- something about him being stationed in Germany, leaving behind a wife and an infant child. The horrors of war, with all the PTSD it entails, I can only suppose.

I’ve been harrassed online because I refused to condemn another man who took his own life as selfish. That too is a long story unto itself– he was a convicted child molester– and many of you may know, that other prisoners view them as lower than the scum of the earth.

But having experienced suicidal thoughts, and other artifacts of the many traumas I have been through– many I haven’t even begun to detail here– I couldn’t.

Image credit: @SPSMChat/#spsm. (Duh!)

Consider joining me on the #spsm Twitter chat to learn more. It’s intense at times, because the live stream consists of five professionals (psychiatrists, therapists et al) who do talk a lot of job. But many of them wear pirate hats. There is good news beyond the lapses into jargon and intellectual words (don’t worry, I freely admit I’m guilty too, especially with technobabble), and there is hope. Not to mention they are very actively doing good; taking action beyond mere words.